Colonel receives the 2nd sentence of extrajudicial executions

A lieutenant colonel retired from the Army was sentenced to 23 years and three months in prison for the murder of a man who falsely reported as a guerrilla killed in combat, said the Attorney General. It was the second conviction against a retired Lt. Col. Luis Fernando Aristizabal Borja, who already in July had received a first conviction for 21 years in prison for the extrajudicial execution of two men in the Colombian Caribbean coast in November 2007.

The new sentence relates to the murder of Angel Gabriel Berrio Vides, shot on February 17, 2008 on a farm in the municipality of San Benito Abad, Sucre department, some 420 kilometers north of Bogota, said the prosecution in a statement on its website.

Borja accepted responsibility in the death of farmer Berrio, prosecutors said, explaining that the retired officer was charged with aggravated homicide as co-author and falsifying public documents.

Next to the officer, who was named commander of the Joint Task Force of Sucre, were also convicted of the same case of an officer Berrio, 23 years and three months in prison and three soldiers to prison terms between 18 and 20 years in prison said the prosecutor.

According to the investigating agency, and the first sentence Borja had confessed that "it was premeditated homicide and related names of officers and soldiers who participated in both this and in other acts perpetrated by the same military unit whose potential liability at least 50 homicide investigation. "

Since late 2008, when it was discovered that some casualties reported by the military were actually extrajudicial executions, the Office has received reports that 2701 persons were victims of this practice.

According to statistics from the investigating agency, 344 military until last April had been convicted of these facts. At least 700 more uniformed linked to criminal proceedings in the prosecution and courts of Colombia.

In October 2008, then President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010) and the current president Juan Manuel Santos, who at the time of the scandal of the executions was the defense minister, dismissed 27 soldiers, including three generals, by action or omission would have some responsibility for these killings.